Syria vows to 'crush' rebels, launches new attacks (click here)
Posted: Oct 06, 2012 1:57 AM EDTUpdated: Oct 06, 2012 3:08 PM EDT
By KARIN LAUB
Associated PressBEIRUT (AP) - Syria's military will "crush" armed rebels, President BasharAssad's defense minister warned Saturday, as the regime shelled rebel positions in two cities and near the Lebanese border in a widening offensive.
Neighboring Turkey, meanwhile, set new rules of engagement after three shells from Syria hit Turkish territory Saturday. Turkey retaliated with artillery, as it has for the past four days, and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said this would now be the standard response.
All Shia are not the same evidently. If Lebanese rebels can fly drones over Israel they can fly them over Syria, too.
11 October 2012 Last updated at 15:37 ETBy KARIN LAUB
Associated PressBEIRUT (AP) - Syria's military will "crush" armed rebels, President BasharAssad's defense minister warned Saturday, as the regime shelled rebel positions in two cities and near the Lebanese border in a widening offensive.
Neighboring Turkey, meanwhile, set new rules of engagement after three shells from Syria hit Turkish territory Saturday. Turkey retaliated with artillery, as it has for the past four days, and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said this would now be the standard response.
Davutoglu insisted that "we haven't taken a step toward war," But Turkey's
threat to fire back for each errant Syrian shell was bound to keep border tensions high. Turkey is one of Assad's harshest critics and a key supporter of Syria's opposition.
The latest Syria-Turkey crisis erupted earlier this week, after a Syrian shell killed five civilians in a Turkish border town....
The leader of Lebanese Shia militant movement Hezbollah (click here) has said that his group was behind the launch of a drone shot down over Israel last week.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told the movement's al-Manar television network that the drone was made in Iran and had flown over "sensitive sites" in Israel.
Israeli fighter planes shot down the drone north of the Negev desert after it entered from the Mediterranean.
Israel's prime minister has again vowed to defend the country's borders.
Sheikh Nasrallah said the drone was assembled in Lebanon but made in Iran - a rare reference to his organisation's military support from Tehran, the BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says....
Assad would chronically cause violence in Beirut through Hezbollah. This is a return of the old Syrian regime. Assad, no doubt, would love to remove the war from Syria and displace it into Turkey and Lebanon, again.
The BBC's Wyre Davies: "This will be a huge event." (click here)
Assad would chronically cause violence in Beirut through Hezbollah. This is a return of the old Syrian regime. Assad, no doubt, would love to remove the war from Syria and displace it into Turkey and Lebanon, again.
Thousands have gathered in Beirut's Martyrs' Square for the funeral of security chief Wissam al-Hassan.
His coffin has been met by Lebanon's president and prime minister at Beirut's police headquarters, close to the site of the car bomb which killed Hassan and two others on Friday.
Lebanon's opposition has blamed the attack on Syria.
A BBC correspondent says the funeral may turn into a huge rally against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Everyone's fear is that the civil war in Syria may spill over into Lebanon and that more violence is inevitable, Wyre Davies reports from Beirut.
"Really, we are waiting for the fall of the regime in Syria. Until that happens there can be no peace in Lebanon," one woman told him in Martyrs' Square....
